Estate Planning

Retroactive Estate Tax in 2010 Less Likely?

By Greg Herman-Giddens

There has been talk in Washington about possibly reinstating the estate tax retroactively to January 1, 2010? If that's done, however, many have speculated that litigation challenging the constitutionality of doing so will follow.  But from whom?

Here's a possible candidate, according to Scott Martin of the The Trust Advisor Blog :  "Houston gas pipeline mogul Dan Duncan was the 74th richest person in the world when he died on March 28. If he'd passed away three months earlier or ten months later, his $9 billion estate could have generated up to $4 billion for the IRS. But because there's no federal estate tax this year, the government gets nothing."  Martin also states that  "the sheer amount of money on the table makes a retroactive tax more unlikely. Big estates mean big lawyers ready to fight to see those billions of dollars go to the deceased's heirs, and the headaches could go on for years."

Full post as published by North Carolina Estate Planning Blog on April 17, 2010 (boomark / email).